Can a Doctor Be Sued for Delaying Treatment?

Any healthcare provider - a doctor, dentist, OB/GYN, etc. - can be sued for delaying treatment or diagnosis of an injury or illness, but proving your case may be difficult.

A doctor or other health care professional’s failure to provide timely care
can amount to medical malpractice, but there are a few things you’ll need to
prove in order to bring a successful lawsuit.

Did The Delay Amount to Negligence?

First, you’ll need to establish that the doctor’s delay in giving you proper
care amounted to medical negligence. A medical
malpractice lawsuit hinges on whether or not the treatment in question was
sub-standard when measured against what a reasonably skilled and competent
physician would have done (or not done) under similar circumstances.

Proving medical negligence usually requires the testimony of a medical
expert witness who will establish what the appropriate course of treatment
would have been under the circumstances, and then explain how the doctor’s
conduct fell short of that standard.

For
Example: Intubation of a patient
is often critical in emergency situations where a patient’s airway has been
blocked. There are well established standards of care regarding the intubation
of patients in emergency situations – it’s a critical, life-saving procedure.

If a doctor fails to intubate a
patient in a timely manner, brain
damage or even death may result. This type of delay in emergency treatment could amount to medical negligence in
many circumstances. If a medical expert testifies that a “reasonable” doctor
would have intubated the patient sooner,
then a case of negligence could be established.

Did The Delay Cause Harm?

The second main component of your case will be the establishment of medical
malpractice damages. To sue the doctor, it’s
not enough that he or she failed to treat or diagnose a disease or injury
in time; it must also have caused additional injury. That means showing exactly
how -- and to what extent -- the delay in the provision of medical care harmed
you. This will also usually require the testimony of an expert medical witness.

There are a number of different ways that improper delay in the provision of
medical care could result in harm to a patient -- the delay may have made your
condition worse, it may have negated the possibility that certain treatment
could be administered, it could have blunted the effectiveness of a certain
treatment method, or it could have unnecessarily prolonged or intensified your
pain and discomfort.

For
Example: A timely diagnosis of
cancer is critical to successfully treating it. The sooner cancer is diagnosed, the greater the options for (and effect
of) treatment. But the diagnosis of cancer is a complex process which includes
physical exams, considerations of the patient’s family history, and testing by
experts.

If an expert testifies that a doctor
had the opportunity to diagnose cancer earlier
but failed (negligently) to do so, it would then have to be shown through
complex medical evidence that the patient suffered additional harm. Proving that a delay in diagnosis lead to
additional injury – death from cancer that otherwise may have been cured, or prolonged
treatment and suffering that should have been avoided – is necessary to
establish a medical malpractice claim.

How To Assert Your Rights

Medical malpractice cases are inherently complex
and
difficult to prove. There is no law that says, “If this doctor failed to do
X procedure in Y amount of time, negligence has occurred”. You’ll need to find
a lawyer with experience in medical malpractice cases (these lawyers typically
have a medical expert available to look into potential cases) to look at the
facts of your case, and determine if all the required legal and medical
elements are there, to justify pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit.